On Christmas Day In The Evening | Page 3

of a Christmas-evening service! Why, Billy'll
be dining in purple and fine linen at the home of one of his millionaire
parishioners--the Edgecombs', most likely. I think they adore him most.
Billy! --Why don't you ask the Bishop himself?"

Margaret flushed brightly. The Reverend William Sewall was her
brother. He might be the very manly and dignified young rector of a
fashionable city church, but no man who answers to the name of Billy
in his own family can be a really formidable personage, and he and his
sister Margaret were undeniably great chums.
"Of course Billy would," cried Margaret. "You know perfectly well he
would, Guy, dear. He doesn't care a straw about millionaires'
dinners--he'd rather have an evening with his newsboys' club, any time.
He has his own service Christmas morning, of course, but in the
evening--He could come up on the afternoon train--he'd love to. Why,
Billy's a bachelor--he's nothing in the world to keep him. I'll telephone
him, first thing in the morning."
From this point on there was no lack of enthusiasm. If Billy Sewall was
coming to North Estabrook, as Sam Burnett remarked, it was time to
get interested--and busy. They discussed everything, excitement
mounting--the music, the trimming of the church--then, more
prosaically, the cleaning and warming and lighting of it. Finally, the
making known to North Estabrook the news of the coming event--for
nothing less than an event it was sure to be to North Estabrook.
"Put a notice in the post office," advised Guy, comfortably crossing his
legs and grinning at his father, "and tell Aunt Eliza and Miss Jane
Pollock, and the thing is done. Sam, I think I see you spending the next
two days at the top of ladders, hanging greens. I have a dim and hazy
vision of you on your knees before that stove that always used to
smoke when the wind was east--the one in the left corner--praying to it
to quit fussing and draw. A nice, restful Christmas vacation you'll
have!"
Sam Burnett looked at his wife. "She's captain," said he. "If she wants
to play with the old meeting-house, play she shall--so long as she
doesn't ask me to preach the sermon."
"You old dear!" murmured Nan, jumping up to stand behind his chair,
her two pretty arms encircling his stout neck from the rear. "You could
preach a better sermon than lots of ministers, if you are only an upright

old bank cashier."
"Doubtless, Nancy, doubtless," murmured Sam, pleasantly. "But as it
will take the wisdom of a Solomon, the tact of a Paul, and the
eloquence of the Almighty Himself to preach a sermon on the present
occasion that will divert the Tomlinsons and the Frasers, the Hills and
the Pollocks from glaring at each other across the pews, I don't think I'll
apply for the job. Let Billy Sewall tackle it. There's one thing about
it--if they get to fighting in the aisles Billy'll leap down from the pulpit,
roll up his sleeves, and pull the combatants apart. A virile religion is
Billy's, and I rather think he's the man for the hour."

II
"Hi, there, Ol--why not get something doing with that hammer? Don't
you see the edge of that pulpit stair-carpeting is all frazzled? The
preacher'll catch his toes in it, and then where'll his ecclesiastical
dignity be?"
The slave-driver was Guy, shouting down from the top of a tall
step-ladder, where he was busy screwing into place the freshly cleaned
oil-lamps whose radiance was to be depended upon to illumine the
ancient interior of the North Estabrook church. He addressed his eldest
brother, Oliver, who, in his newness to the situation and his consequent
lack of sympathy with the occasion, was proving but an indifferent
worker. This may have been partly due to the influence of Oliver's wife,
Marian, who, sitting--in Russian sables--in one of the middle pews, was
doing what she could to depress the labourers. The number of these, by
the way, had been reinforced by the arrival of the entire Fernald clan, to
spend Christmas.
"Your motive is undoubtedly a good one," Mrs. Oliver conceded. She
spoke to Nan, busy near her, and she gazed critically about the shabby
old walls, now rapidly assuming a quite different aspect as the great
ropes of laurel leaves swung into place under the direction of Sam
Burnett. That young man now had Edson Fernald and Charles

Wetmore--Carolyn's husband--to assist him, and he was making the
most of his opportunity to order about two gentlemen who had shown
considerable reluctance to remove their coats, but who were now--to
his satisfaction--perspiring so freely that they had some time since
reached the point of casting aside still other articles of apparel. "But I
shall be much surprised," Mrs. Oliver continued, "if you attain